You need at least 150 hours of clinical experience — specifically, direct patient care — in order to have a competitive med school application. Aim for 300-500 hours to compete at the top medical schools.
The best clinical experience often comes from paid work you do during undergrad or gap years, but there are also high-quality volunteer opportunities worth considering as well. Shadowing a PA vs MD can also help you decide which profession fits you best.
Let’s go through the best clinical experiences to consider, what counts as clinical experience, how to find these opportunities, and other valuable resources to get you where you need to be.
Need shadowing hours for medical school? Sign up for our free Virtual Shadowing course and start shadowing practicing physicians from your phone or laptop.
Admissions committees typically define clinical experience as patient exposure in a clinical setting. For instance, shadowing a physician in a clinic does not count as clinical experience unless you directly engage in patient care on a regular basis.
We advise you to have at least 150 hours of clinical experience to be an outstanding med school applicant. That’s 150 hours of patient interaction and patient care. And if you want to be as competitive at top-tier and Ivy League schools of medicine, 300+ hours is a good goal.
Note that there’s a lot of confusion out there on the Internet. I’ve seen many websites claim that all shadowing opportunities are clinical experiences. But as a former AdCom and experienced medical school admissions advisor, I can tell you that it only counts as clinical experience if you regularly engage in direct patient medical care.
Shadowing is important, and we recommend you get 50-100 hours of shadowing a physician across multiple specialties, but it’s no replacement for patient-facing clinical experience.
There are a lot of ways to find clinical opportunities that can give you patient exposure or medical experience while counting towards your medical school application.
Here are the most common actions you can take to actually find clinical experience opportunities:
Below are the part-time and full-time clinical opportunities that are best for developing you into a well-rounded medical school candidate and future physician.
We generally advise pre-meds to find paid clinical opportunities in healthcare settings. That way, you can support yourself through college and gap years while gaining the experience needed for med school.
Note: Clinical volunteering positions are also great if you can find them, but there are other productive ways to volunteer that don’t involve clinical work.
Working for emergency medical services is a top-tier method of getting patient exposure and real-life healthcare experience. The hours may be long and unusual, but the experiences are meaningful.
You have to get your Emergency Medical Technician (EMT) certification, which opens the door to working at private ambulance services, on-campus EMS, and even certain fire departments or municipal EMS services.
If you’ve earned your EMT certification, you can also work in emergency rooms as an ER technician. This involves taking patients’ vitals, assisting nurses and physicians, performing CPR, and more.
The hours may prove unpredictable, and the work may be grueling, but you’ll be able to make a difference in patients’ lives as a healthcare professional even before you start medical school.
You can get trained and employed as a medical scribe, which counts as clinical experience. As a scribe, you’ll be part of a healthcare team that gets patient exposure. Scribing is most common in the ER, but scribes are needed in all sorts of medical departments.
This is one of the first medical jobs becoming obsolete due to AI in healthcare. But if a hospital offers this job, it’s a great way to experience how doctors and admin staff talk with one another and with patients.
Learn More: How AI Has Impacted Med School Admissions
Medical assistants (MAs) work with healthcare providers to provide patient care. MA is one of the most common pre-med jobs to gain clinical experience before medical school.
To become a medical assistant, you may need to complete a medical assistant training program and a Certified Medical Assistant (CMA) certification course.
A lot of pre-med students complete training programs to become certified nursing assistants (CNAs) or certified nurse aides.
CNAs obtain clinical exposure by helping real-world healthcare professionals provide patients with daily basic medical needs.
Most research roles will count as “Research/Lab” experience on your AMCAS application, but clinical research coordinator (CRC) roles could also be placed under the “Medical/Clinical” category. It all depends on what your day-to-day responsibilities are.
I would say that most CRC positions usually involve interacting with patients (e.g., taking vitals). If that’s the case for you, then you can definitely mark your experience as “Medical/Clinical.”
On the other hand, some clinical research coordinators might spend most of their time looking at data and crunching numbers. If that describes your CRC experience, it’s probably better to mark it as “Research/Lab” on your AMCAS.
To land a CRC position, you typically need only a high school diploma, but you may be required to obtain other certifications to qualify.
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Research indicates that many medical students wish they had more experience dealing with end-of-life situations before entering med school. Volunteering at a hospice care provider might be one of the most valuable clinical experiences for prospective medical professionals.
Admissions officers value any hands-on experience you’ve had with dying patients and their family members, as long as you talk about it eloquently and respectfully in your application.
To become a phlebotomist at a doctor’s office or local hospital setting, you’ll need a CPT (Certified Phlebotomy Technician) certification.
As a phlebotomist, you’ll interact with many different patients as you draw blood and prepare it for testing. And it pays well for an entry-level position, relative to the short training period.
According to an article published by the AAMC, serving as a caretaker can count as clinical experience for medical school.
This kind of patient exposure can help hone your bedside manner and professional social skills by allowing you to interact regularly with a single patient.
Pre-med students can gain clinical experience by participating in international volunteering, such as at a foreign health clinic or by joining a Medical Brigade.
These international experiences expose pre-med and pre-health students to different healthcare systems, unique sets of patients, and new cultural perspectives on well-being and illness.
If you’re looking into international volunteer experiences, make sure you work with a sustainable, empowering organization. Voluntourism, white saviorism, and unethical volunteering can actually hurt your application. Do your research in advance.
Of course, it’s not enough to simply have the number of 150 clinical hours on your application. Remember, it’s more about quality than quantity.
The reason med schools want to see so much clinical experience is to show your passion for and dedication to patient care. AdComs want to know that you understand what it means to be a versatile physician who can care for and communicate with patients from various backgrounds.
Here are some expert tips to maximize your clinical hours towards applying for medical school and becoming a well-rounded med student and future physician:
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In recent years, gap years have become increasingly common. A majority of med school students have taken at least one gap year, which can help you get more experience in a clinical environment — among other benefits.
A post-bacc might also be helpful if you don’t have enough experience or a high enough GPA to have a competitive application. Even with great MCAT and GPA numbers, many post-bacc programs help you identify the pre-med extracurriculars you need to be competitive. Almost 1 in 7 med students enrolled in a post-bacc pre-med non-degree program before matriculating.
Read Next: The Best Medical Schools for Non-Traditional Applicants (2025)
There are some things you can do right now to get started boosting your application with high-quality clinical experience:
Read Next: The 32-Hour Rule: Myth or Fact? Plus, Med Schools That Use It
Between clinical experience, volunteering, shadowing, research, and leadership opportunities, applying to medical school requires a lot of extracurricular activities.
But don’t feel overwhelmed — MedSchoolCoach physicians are on-call to help you identify, apply to, and succeed at the experiences you need for your application.
Frustrated by your school's on-campus pre-med advising? Get 24/7 guidance from a physician with AdCom experience when you sign up for our Pre-Med Coaching service.